


Reverence (or, Desire and Fear)

by toasty_freshest



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 20:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19775632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toasty_freshest/pseuds/toasty_freshest
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale finally talk about their feelings and kiss a whole lot. Excuse the purple prose I'm just in love with Good Omens all over again uwu





	Reverence (or, Desire and Fear)

“I’m glad you’re back” Crowley said. He and Aziraphale were each collapsed bonelessly on their respective armchairs in the bookshop, after Armageddon. The world wasn’t falling apart anymore, except maybe it was.

“I can’t believe it worked. It could hardly have gone better. Though we are on our own now,” Aziraphale said, voice carefully light. To counteract the want, maybe, or the longing, or the centuries of aching that lived in his bones. It seeped out of him every time he locked eyes with Crowley, like there was a sponge inside him and the way Crowley looked back at him, no sunglasses on, squeezed it out. 

And inside Crowley, too, there was a constriction. Inside him, a leash, looped around the essence of his being, forcing him to stay inside his body, forcing the right words back inside his chest from where they played on the tip of his tongue. “But we’ll be better now,” said Aziraphale. 

“Better at what? We don’t have jobs anymore, there’s nothing to be better at,” said Crowley, and the sponge tightened inside Aziraphale again. The pressure was unbearable, the words he’d been stuffing down since Lord-knows-when foaming up. 

“We angels aren’t supposed to Desire things, you know,” he said, and Crowley nodded. 

“It was always a take-what-you-get sort of deal, wasn’t it?” Crowley said. “Not much room to wiggle.” He shimmied, snakelike, and it was part punctuation and part discomfort. 

“Exactly. But, of course, I did. I do. I Desire,” Aziraphale said, wincing. “I Desire so much, and I’m just awful at controlling myself.” He twisted his hands together and let them fall to his lap. “It must be nice to be a demon sometimes. To take what you want.”

“It doesn’t work like that, even for us.” Crowley said. Aziraphale noticed that he had put on his glasses again, and worried the flesh between his thumb and forefinger with his opposite hand. He waited for more explanation, but received none. 

“What you do you mean? That’s Hell, isn’t it? A gluttonous nightmare?” As soon as he said it, Crowley looked away. His voice came out much softer now, and the sound of it pulled at Aziraphale harder than it had before. 

“You can’t have any Desire at all. But me? I am only allowed to Desire when it is useful. Less gluttony, more…bureaucracy.” Crowley smiled toothily. “A cog in the Hell machine, that’s me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale, and he almost stopped himself from continuing, just like he had so many other times. He and Crowley had danced at the edge of this conversation thousands of times, in thousands of places and times and situations. Usually drunk, but not always. Not this time. So why was it so hard to stop talking? Why couldn’t he keep himself from being exposed? Here they were, having this conversation, again, and it hurt like a sunburn aching when shown the sun again too soon. “I never fought it too hard. I’m too soft to discipline myself. I did all the things I Desired, indulged in food and drink and sex, and it was lovely.” Here, he sighed, because it was true. Every moment of physical pleasure was good. The sushi and the tandoor and the fish with chips. The people, all across time, of every sort. “But it’s always, always a reminder that I’m Betraying Heaven.” 

“Is it worth it? The Betrayal?” Crowley asked, and moved to lean forward in his armchair. His eyebrows were raised from behind those big round glasses, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but smile. 

“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Where is the pleasure in a Betrayal when it’s temporary? I’m always hungry again.” The question of what, exactly, he was hungry for was left unasked, but it was answered in the way Aziraphale looked at Crowley, eyes heavy-lidded and sad. Crowley was silent. It was a terrible, awful silence, and it felt longer than the silence after Jesus died, but loud as the tear in the temple veil that came next. And just like the temple veil, Aziraphale’s resolve slipped and tore and everything inside him started to spill out. “But you’ve never been temporary, Crowley. You’ve always been around. The one Desire I’ve never indulged, but you never go away. No matter how many delicious meals I eat or vintage wines I taste, you’re still there and you still Tempt me.”

“Of course I Tempt you, angel.” Crowley said, and Aziraphale couldn’t tell if he was looking at him or not. He also couldn’t tell which was worse. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and it was a pained sound. “But I’m Tempted more than you intend. I’ve been Tempted for so long, I’ve forgotten when it started. Thinking things like if we didn’t touch I’ll positively crumble to dust, but if we did, I’ll burst into flame. It came up on me so slowly I’ve forgotten how existing felt before you, you wily devil, began to Tempt me.” After Aziraphale was finished he forgot everything he had said, only aware that the rising pressure of yearning hadn’t lifted at all, but intensified to a blinding, all-consuming fear. Until Crowley broke the Earth-shattering ringing inside Aziraphale’s head: suddenly he could see Crowley’s eyes again, and they looked sad. So, so sad. 

“I never meant to cause you pain.”

“Oh, I know. It’s probably in your nature to Tempt, it’s not your fault. Curse me and my blasted weak will, right?” Aziraphale said, trying to smile but coming out with a grimace. 

“Is that what you think of me? That I’m just doing my job? That everything I’ve wanted for six thousand years is just…a flaw of my design?”

“Everything you’ve wanted?” Aziraphale said in a small voice. “What… what have you wanted?”

“You, angel. Since the Beginning,” said Crowley, voice dripping with awe. Aziraphale didn’t know demons even possessed the ability to feel awe, but in an instant everything went quiet. “I’ve known you, seen you, desired you… since before there were words for any of it. Haven’t you felt it?” Crowley said, but before the sentence was done, in that instant, Aziraphale stood to kiss him. And their mouths were together, finally, and Aziraphale’s hands were on Crowley’s lapels, his chest, finally, and the Need inside him still wasn’t satisfied.

They kissed like they had been waiting forever for it, because they had. They kissed like the Betrayal had better be worth it, because it was. Aziraphale grabbed the back of Crowley’s neck and pulled him down. The force of it turned Aziraphale’s body into a crashing waterfall of need. Need that was stronger even than the Desire that made Aziraphale ashamed. The shame broke him as they kissed, and he grasped at Crowley’s hair and pressed himself against the demon that had always been there, always Tempting him, both from nearby and far away. The feel of their bodies together was intoxicating, like static electricity finally discharged when they touched, like the grit at the bottom of a bottle of wine. 

“Of course I felt it. Of course, of course I did” Aziraphale whispered between kisses. “I didn’t know. I didn’t realize…”

“For you. Everything you’ve felt has been for you,” Crowley said, and the awe was filling up his voice and welled in his eyes and suddenly he was crying. “Am I a monster for doing this to you?”

“Oh, for God—for Sa—well, for someone’s sake. Crowley, I’m not upset. If anything, it’s Heaven’s fault. For making this…for making it so hard to notice that I love you.” Aziraphale felt a hand on his cheek, and realized that Crowley was wiping away a tear that had been working its way down Aziraphale’s face. As soon as he noticed that he was crying, more words suddenly came out in sobs. “How did it take me this long? Oh, we could have been… for so long…” 

“I thought you were ignoring it. Ignoring me. Just glossing over how desperate I was for you because Heaven made you incapable of pitying something like me.”

“I don’t pity you,” Aziraphale said, and smoothed a lock of hair off of Crowley’s forehead. “Heaven prefers reverence to pity, anyway. And I’m full of reverence for you.”

The kisses came in droves, like they had been starving for them, because they had. And in the moments they stopped to breathe, or to look at one another, or to laugh, Aziraphale realized that he was a glutton. He had always been hungry, but he hadn’t known how starved he was until he’d been fed. 


End file.
